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Large investment funds want to cut BES losses

Large investment funds such as Blackrock and Pimco, once again asked the Bank of Portugal to return to the negotiating table to mitigate the losses they suffered with BES/Novo Banco bonds.

The funds again criticised the Bank of Portugal’s decision of late December 2015 to hand over more than €2 billion in unsubordinated bonds that were transferred from former Banco Espírito Santo to its bad bank, saying this violated the fundamental principles of investment and showed that the regulators were prepared to use their powers opportunistically and unforeseeably.The funds said they were badly affected by the decision as they had about €1.4 billion invested in these bonds and the only way for the Portuguese authorities to earn investors’ trust again was to “correct past mistakes” and asked the central bank to return to the negotiating table.Following the decision in December 2015, there were months of talks between the funds, the Bank of Portugal and the government to find a solution to reduce the losses, as the finance minister, Mário Centeno, acknowledged last May, but the process has not moved on since then.

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